US steamroller fails to faze PM

Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
was served an object lesson in US power during President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia.

The Americans were happy to let their press believe the stationing of extra troops in Australia was about China, while Australian officials were desperate to say the opposite.

While US journalists were briefed ahead of the visit by US President
Barack Obama
of Washington’s intention to use the expansion of the Darwin base as part of an effort to counter the rise of China, Australian government officials in Canberra were talking of a modest extension of the training and exercises the two countries do together.

Of course, using Darwin as part of a plan to attack China is absurd, and the importance of the announcement rested on its symbolism: the Americans are “back in the Pacific to stay’’.

China swiftly responded. While briefed beforehand by Australian officials, Beijing’s response was predictable. It condemned the boost to Australia-US military ties as inappropriate, after a stinging attack came from a government-controlled newspaper.

Indonesia, too, expressed concerns, which was puzzling given that Jakarta had been briefed and the most likely place these troops would be deployed in the first instance is Indonesia, to provide assistance for one of its regular disasters.

But the US spin showed just how easily Gillard could get caught in a web not exactly of her own making. It will require great balancing skills to comfortably conduct relationships with two rivals vying for her attentions – one representing long-standing national security protections of the highest order, the other representing future economic security of the highest order. This week’s lesson is that her message can get crunched by the Pentagon.

Notwithstanding that much of the politics was almost beyond her control, there is no doubt that Gillard has gained confidence on the world stage through a gruelling month of summits, and her improved poll standing has given her breathing space from any prospective Rudd challenge.

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First, there was a G20 meeting in Cannes where the Prime Minister secured the backing of the world’s premier rich and developing economies for an audacious plan to restart the stalled Doha trade round by breaking it down into a series of sector-by-sector negotiations.

In between, an APEC meeting in Hawaii where the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a league of nine like-minded Asia-Pacific countries, including Australia – declared an ambitious timetable to clinch a free-trade deal by the end of 2012.

Then back to Australia, where the Prime Minister made a long-overdue announcement that she will seek to overturn an outdated ban on uranium sales to India at December’s ALP conference.

It has been long-standing ALP policy not to sell uranium to India because it was an unrecognised nuclear weapons power which has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But the US agreed to sell nuclear technology and fuel to India in 2006 in return for New Delhi subjecting its civilian nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

For India, the ban has been seen as a breach of trust by Australia given Australia already supplies Russia and China, and India has an exemplary non-proliferation record.

The back-to-back summits have also starved Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
of coverage, although he did use his speech in the Parliament, in response to the Obama visit, to remind the Australian public the Coalition agreed to sell uranium to India in 2007 and the issue should have been ancient history.

Gillard describes the ban as an anomaly given that Australia, as a member of the nuclear suppliers group, does not oppose other members supplying India.

Obama’s visit has undoubtedly drawn the two allies and the two leaders closer together.

The Lowy Institute for International Policy’s global issues program director, Michael Fullilove, says the phrase “special relationship’’ is often overused in relation to Australian and US leaders and the alliance, but Gillard and Obama appear “increasingly comfortable with one another’’.

He says the visit will be remembered for Obama’s statement on the Asia-Pacific region.

“The President and the Prime Minister were born in the same year, they both are firsts in history in the sense of he being the first African-American President and she being Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, and they are both saddled with deep domestic problems.

“But Obama would probably give his right arm to have the budget position Gillard does,’’ he says.